800
PARTISAN REVIEW
'You could fancy we were lying
On the beach.' Do you want to sing?
-No.
-Do you find the room unnaturally quiet?
-No. It
Is probably trying to think.
If
anything waits
For something it cannot think.
-You mean it falls apart? But the room is still
Here. You can sit on the table or pace the floor
Or talk.
-That is what I meant.
-Listen,
Is that a starling behind the chimney piece? Or water flowing?
I forgot to water the statues in the hall,
The three girls picking flowers, the little ones,
Called Morning, Noon, and Night. And the large ones,
Father and Mother, who sometimes talk,
Should be fed at once, then covered with a cloth
And put to sleep. One becomes extremely
Domestic
if
one lives alone.
-That fluttering
Of wings behind the walls could be echoes
Of a blind man playing a violin,
Or
is
everyone
in
the
city
blessed with eyes?
You needn't answer.
-There
is
a half-domed
Casement pouring light above us; it is not,
But looks like a three-quarter moon.
Would you like to see it?
-No.
